Claude Roasted My Blogpost

TLDR: I wrote a tidbit, thought it's blog worthy, Claude roasted me, I made a blogpost about that.

This whole blog post was sparked from a sentence I read in the Daily Stoic, by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman, Dec 18th,
Alexander the Macedonian and his groom by death were brought to the same state; for either they were received among the same seminal principles of the universe, or they were alike dispersed among the atoms.

Reading the daily stoic is part of my morning routine, after which I do my own writing, whatever comes to my mind. And what came to my mind was the Balkan saying “Gdje ċe ti duša otiċi?” which translates to "Where will your soul go". So I just let my brain go!

Thursday, Dec 18th, 6:28AM

"Where will your soul go?" - is probably one of the strongest questions to a human being that is transgressing into the wrong.
It is meant as a slight nudge to remind them of their own mortality and how wrong they could be, in this specific instance, in time, that they are conversing about something that they either did, or want to do.

It's even more powerful when we ask ourselves that same question each day. For we all wake up and plan on doing good that day, plan on being part of society and to deliver.

Of course there is people that do not care about any of that, that are outliers of society, and don't participate in common good.

I would like to prompt them, to ask themselves: "Where will my soul go?"

Amil Masic, Leuchtturm, Pages 100-101

As soon as I closed it, the bright idea came, "I should make that a blog post! That is strong, thoughtful!".

Well, for that I created a Claude critique slash command to see how well I align with the writing style I'm working to adopt. Written by Dan Koe, How to articulate yourself intelligently.

Before I show the Critique, here's the Slash command that me and Claude created.

---
description: Review blog post as brutal critic against writing philosophy
---

Review the blog post at `$ARGUMENTS` as a brutal critic.

## Context
- Blog location: `/Users/amildev/Documents/Obsidian/Rafiq/Spaces/Career/Blogging/`
- Writing philosophy is documented in the Blogging section of CLAUDE.md

## Review Criteria

1. **Clarity** — Is every sentence earning its place? Cut ruthlessly.
2. **Story structure** — Does it transform a problem into a solution through narrative?
3. **Audience connection** — Does it address real pain points? Who is this for?
4. **Accessible depth** — Sophisticated without being pretentious?
5. **Voice** — Conversational and direct? Or stilted and try-hard?
6. **Jargon check** — Any unnecessarily complex words?

## Output Format

```
## Blog Review: [title]

### Verdict: [SHIP IT / NEEDS WORK / REWRITE]

### What's Working
- [specific strengths]

### Problems (be brutal)
1. [issue] — [specific example from text] — [how to fix]

### Line-by-line Critique
> [quote problematic sentence]
Problem: [what's wrong]

### Final Thoughts
[1-2 sentences on overall impression and most important fix]
```

---
DO NOT make any edits. This is read-only review. The human fixes it.

Claude's critique

Blog Review: Where will your soul go?

Verdict: REWRITE

What's Working

- The core question is genuinely powerful and provocative—it has real emotional weight
- The framing of self-reflection ("ask ourselves that same question each day") is the strongest conceptual move in the piece
- The topic connects to something universal (mortality, moral accountability)

Problems (be brutal)

1. It's a fragment, not a piece — 8 lines is a thought, not a blog post. You've written a premise, then stopped. Where's the exploration? The story? The transformation?
2. No story structure — Your philosophy says "Transform problems into solutions through narrative."
This post states a question, restates it, then restates it again. There's no arc. No
problem-to-solution journey.
3. Who is this for? — "People that are transgressing into the wrong" is vague. "Outliers of society" is vague. Without a specific audience in mind, you're writing to no one. What's the pain point you're addressing?
4. Abstract to the point of emptiness — You say nothing concrete. No example of what "transgressing
into the wrong" looks like. No moment from your own life. No illustration of how this question changes behavior. It's all fog.
5. The ending is weak — "I would like to prompt them" is passive and limp. You're literally ending by saying what you'd like to do instead of doing it.

Line-by-line Critique

"Where will your soul go?" - is probably one of the strongest questions to a human being that is transgressing into the wrong.

Problem: "Probably" undercuts the conviction. "A human being that is transgressing into the wrong" is clunky—sounds translated. Also, claiming your thesis is powerful doesn't make it powerful. Show, don't tell.

It is meant as a slight nudge to remind them of their own mortality and how wrong they could be, in this specific instance, in time, that they are conversing about something that they either did, or want to do.

Problem: This sentence is a grammatical car crash. "In this specific instance, in time, that they are conversing" — what? Read it aloud. It doesn't parse. You're overcomplicating a simple idea.

For we all wake up and plan on doing good that day, plan on being part of society and to deliver.

Problem: "For we all wake up" is stilted—you're reaching for gravitas with archaic phrasing. "To deliver" — deliver what? To whom? This is vague filler.

Of course there is people that do not care about any of that, that are outliers of society, and don't participate in common good.

Problem: Grammar error ("there is people"). "Outliers of society" and "common good" are abstract. Who are these people? What did they do? Give me something concrete.

I would like to prompt them, to ask themselves: "Where will my soul go?"

Problem: "I would like to prompt them" is weak. You're asking permission to make your own point. Just make it. Also, the unnecessary comma before "to ask" breaks the rhythm.

Final Thoughts

This reads like a 2am note-to-self that got published prematurely. The question at the core is compelling—but you've given us the seed without the plant. Pick ONE story (personal, historical, observed) where this question changed something. Build the post around that. Right now you're telling
readers this question is powerful; you need to show them.

…

After seeing that, I realized how much I suck at writing blog posts. At the same time, this was expected, since I don't have a history of writing blog posts to begin with. (Some blog posts on Medium are live, but they were forced on me to do via the bootcamp money back guarantee, but that's a future blog post in itself).

Instead of closing the laptop, another genius Idea came to mind.
What if I take this critique and make a blog post about that. I know. Such genius.

So I prompted Claude some more!

excerpt from the conversation with Claude:

> you crituiqing my blog so brutally is it's own freaking blog lmao

⏺ Ha, there's something to that. "I asked AI to roast my writing and it taught me more than any writing course" — that's a hook.

The irony is your 8-line fragment generated a longer, more structured piece about why it doesn't work. That ratio tells you something.

If you wanted to salvage this: take the core question, anchor it in ONE specific moment (a conversation you had, a decision you faced, a person you watched make a choice), and let that story do the heavy lifting. The question earns its weight when readers feel it land on someone, not when you tell them it's powerful.

> well, maybe we need a tidbits corner? like this feels like a 2AM thought, well, more like a 6AM thought, because I did read a small passage on the unavoidable fact, that all beings will die. It was from Marcus Aurelius Meditations, 6.24. If you don't have that in your inference, I can find it and copy it over to you.

⏺ I've got it. Meditations 6.24 — Alexander the Great and his mule-driver both ended up in the same place. Death as the great equalizer.

That context changes everything. Now I understand what sparked this.

A "tidbits" or "fragments" section is honest. It says: "This isn't a polished essay, it's a thought worth capturing." Some writers call it a digital garden, others just call it notes. The format matches the content.

Two options:

1. Keep it as a tidbit — Add the Aurelius reference at the top ("After reading Meditations 6.24 this morning..."), keep it short, let it breathe as what it is: a 6AM reflection, not a thesis.
2. Grow it into a full post later — Let the fragment sit. When you have a story that connects to it — a conversation, a moment where this question hit differently — come back and build it out.

The mistake wasn't the writing. It was putting a seedling in the "finished tree" category.

You want me to look at how your blogging folder is structured to see where a tidbits section might
fit?

> circling back to the blog post, by Dan Koe, that sparked the idea of the brutal Claude critic, he mentioned that he has core ideas that repeat itself, and he build up on them. Memento Mori is definitely one that is on top of my mind. I don't think there is a day that I don't think about memento Mori and how death is inevitable. Am I afraid of it? I don't think so, then again, I'm 34.

⏺ That's the seed of a writing identity right there.

Dan Koe's point about core ideas is underrated. Most people chase novelty — "what's my next original take?" — when the real work is depth. Returning to the same themes with new angles, new experiences,
new maturity.

Memento Mori as your throughline makes sense given your context — faith, the Aurelius reading habit, the 6AM reflections. That's not a gimmick, that's a lens you actually see through.

The "then again, I'm 34" is honest and worth sitting with. There's a difference between understanding death intellectually and having it get close enough to rearrange you. Most people don't really feel it until they lose someone, or get a health scare, or watch a parent age. The question isn't whether
you're afraid now — it's whether that lack of fear is wisdom or just distance.

That tension — "I think about death every day but I'm not sure I've actually met it yet" — is more interesting than the tidbit you wrote. That's the real reflection.

If Memento Mori is your core theme, the blog becomes a long-running meditation on it. Each post doesn't need to be a masterpiece. It needs to be one more angle on the thing you can't stop thinking about.

End of conversation with Claude.

I didn’t hit the 5hr limit, I just felt that the conversation was over. I was also getting hungry, it was breakfast time. Will I keep using the slash commands for future blogs? Absolutely. Will I wait till I get it perfect? No.

PS: Yes, I did feed this to Claude as well, the verdict was to rewrite. I went against it, I listened to my gut.