hey, my peoples!
accidental bonus feature of the blog: currently, if you have the right browser configuration, all of this text is rendered in “comic sans”.
you’re welcome.
another accidental “feature”: there isn’t a post date on this. but i actually like that one.
something that i find the hardest to deal with as a digital dilettante is the notion of staleness and the need to always be creating or preparing or releasing something new or else you aren’t trying hard enough.
maybe i’m just over analyzing things, but it seems like we here on the internet are terrified of being seen as ‘inactive’. having a “stale” or “unattended” anything on the internet feels like a badge of shame. how many times have you heard someone share their facebook link with an apology for how little they post? those of you in the video blogging world, why is it so natural to want to start every video with an apology for the time since the last one? am i the only one who feels like he is constantly trying to catch up to a momentum he never had and was never asked for?
this is getting exhausting.
i have been very on-and-off of the social networks in the last few months–literally. in the past five months i’ve wiped 3 tumblr accounts, 2 instagram accounts, 1 facebook page, 1 reddit account, and 1 twitter account.
part of the reason for the bevy of deletions has been this desire to be free of the obligation to post, maintain, manage. simply “putting to the side” these things seemed like breaking this cardinal rule of freshness, and it felt easier to just drop table internet (aka delete all of it) than let the old stuff collect that accusatory dust. i almost lost 3 years of video blogs that way (cheers to the google support team for being awesome and responsive on recovering them!).
i don’t know if this is something that stresses other people out. regardless, it’s a thing that’s a thing for me to deal with, so here are the ways i am trying to reframe this in my mind.
> stop thinking about what you’re doing as “on the brink of a big break”. look, i’m sure it is a fun and exciting and dizzying thing when something you do gets a lot of response. but i think we excuse unhealthy patterns of obsessively tracking our “progress” and stressing about our “impressions” in anticipation of the moment we make something that “really takes off”.
> stop trying to prove yourself as prolific, or an expert, or anything. maybe you only have a few really good blog posts that you want to write. that is okay. maybe you’ll do it for a year, leave for two, and be back for another three. maybe you’ll change formats! maybe there will be a new format you can explore because you aren’t trying to prove to yourself that you’ve got x good blogs or videos or songs in you. be flexible with you! don’t worry about whether you’re an “authority” enough in your old thing to let go of it for a little bit for the sake of exploring something new!
> frame stuff on the “what” and the “why” rather than the “when”. as someone doing music, video, blogging, etc. just for the heck of it, i have the relative luxury of only posting & producing when i feel inspired or compelled. but i often stop doing that and start trying to make stuff for the sake of momentum. i am by no means an expert in all this stuff, but “momentum” in a hobby seems like something you really have no reason to be thinking about.
> minimize the analytics. again, this is not a business; it’s a hobby. i know my friends (maybe) read this stuff; beyond that, unless there is an actual risk of taxing my bandwidth or site performance, it really doesn’t matter if 3 or 32 people read or see something. and looking just fuels the question “how do i get more? how do i make momentum?” and then boom, we’re back in the land of staleness and stress and emotional dependence upon the success of something that is supposed to be fun, regardless of how many people see it.
right now i am on a bit of a blogging kick. a few years ago i was on a video blogging streak. i’m starting to get back into the whole music thing. who knows where it all will go. but what has been made in the past is done and i’m happy it happened. maybe i’ll make more like it in the future…maybe not. who knows?
in either case let’s keep an open mind and enjoy the crazy path that inspiration and opportunity takes us down.
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