Sincerity: What I Write For
The awareness that I would write for the rest of my life sat in me for some time before I acknowledged it. It was too complicated to think through at first, the ridiculousness of it all almost infuriated me. I had gone to college, I had gone in any other career direction and yet here it was- with me still. And for what? A kid’s dream to someday say something someone might remember and like? It felt silly. Yet here I am, yet here you are.
Trapped in a digital age like this one, there’s much to consider when fighting for an independent income and lifestyle brought to you by freelance work or some other career change. You have to learn the skills, being a good writer just doesn’t cut it anymore. You need to know how to push things out to an audience, how to acquire said audience, how to maintain a media presence, when to publish things and at what times. All these ideas numbed me.
We live in a world of optimization. Everything we do online is racked up to how much interaction someone gets with your posts, how much time they spend reading it, if they react, share, or like it. When searching for solutions we look for the quick fixes and minimal word count. No one is exactly looking for something online to move you. We want something simple, but quickly. Now, before we know we want it, now. People finding independence through this work is possible, but rare. Laborious. The idea that I could earn money is lucrative, but I have my hesitations. Namely, and this has become my saving grace: perfection.
I for so long have wanted something perfect. I have wanted to make it, but I didn’t want to show anyone until it was time. I wanted something that may not have returns, but will be mine in every prospect of the word. Something I can feel proud of. A long-term gratifying project. This has taken multiple forms: book trilogies, TV show scripts, games, plays, paintings.
Wildly enough, none of those things have ever met my standard, or come fully into fruition. This is also what stops me from enacting a further presence online, but it also stops me from doing what I love most.
This notion of trying to make it big on a platform (any platform) that is so swollen with so many people trying to do the same thing ends up looking like two mountains stacked on top of each other. And you forgot your good hiking boots. I’ve always hesitated to make the climb at all, because I don’t think I even want to.
The current economic system we have makes me feel maladapted. It makes me feel like I’m not fit to live anywhere, because I don’t want to do it in the same way. I feel that I’m not fit to live if I can’t make something worthy of consumption, constantly churning out content for people I can’t know but want resources (money, stability) from. All around us, there are Instagram reels of small business owners, furniture flippers, influencers giving testimony for products that aren’t even theirs. We see Youtube advertisements for “passive income streams” and if you just take my free workshop I can show you too how to take control of your life. So many people are out there, doing, trying; and here I am, not.
It feels hysterical, despite the fact I know it’s incredibly common. Some people call it Imposter’s Syndrome- the fear of being found out to be a momentous hack. I could agree with it, but I haven’t even tried. I haven’t even bothered, I’m not even known. What forays I engage in trying to force my way into the mainstream (or any stream for that matter) I quickly jerk back and hide. I hate it, but if I want to do anything remotely in the field of writing it starts here.
It settles down to this: I don’t fear rejection, I fear not being noticed. I fear that nothing will happen if I try, I fear that it doesn’t matter to anyone but me- and the thing is I know it doesn’t. I’m not social media savvy, my few accounts are private or quiet. My footsteps on the internet are light save a few early fumbles in my teenage years- Instagram handles under a different name, passwords forgotten to time.
The truth is, I don’t want to be blasted on anyone’s timeline. I want to be here. I want to be writing, and I can’t do that if I’m sweating about advertising or promotions, or pushing out something I haven’t finished yet. I can’t do that uncertain about grocery bills or credit card debt. I need stability, and while I could get that from a steadfast online presence, I really, really don’t want to.
The density of the internet never ceases to cloud my thoughts. A constant drumming of notifications I’ve long kept silenced on my phone, unwilling to see the little red circles of “pick me!” until I’m seeking it out intentionally. Even then, it can be too much. And when I’m overwhelmed I end up not writing for days, just frustrated with the prospects, of the things I enjoy so much but can’t seem to hold onto.
It wasn’t like this for other poets. Other authors who got lucky and were picked up by publishers, who submitted to hundreds of magazines and companies, greeted with so many declines but pursuing onward. Granted, there is a lot wrong with publishing deals. Writers could end up with crates of books no one wanted in their house, harboring only a meager percentage of the profits that never come. These days self-publishing is accessible and deliriously easy. These days someone can become a sensation overnight- if they have the audience, if they’ve surmounted the swelling sea of other hopefuls aiming to rise to the top. It’s always been a competition, it just feels worse now, more bare-fisted for titles of fame and genius. It scares me. I’m by no means a fighter. I don’t have the ambition and drive to manipulate hundreds of thousands of people into liking me, or wanting my books. I think I just want to write. I think I just want people to want to read, with no convincing of my own.
And to emphasize, content creators aren’t bad people. No one here is doing something wrong, but there is an aspect of virtual output you can’t take back. Once you work on that audience, there’s a notion of not being able to stop. Once you’re on Instagram you can’t really go off. I’ve tried several times to delete my Facebook, and every time I look myself up again I find that it’s still there, always still there. There’s a permanence to this world we’ve made, for better or for worse. I could be scared of my fumbling, with those natural fears of mediocrity telling me that I’m not as good as I think I am. Or maybe I should be worried that the things I say now might not be how I feel six years later, but I think it has more to do with how that output makes me feel.
I’d rather be unknowable, published, and proud than have a fanbase I don’t know how to interact with. I’d rather have every piece of my soul, parts of me entirely private and obscured from view, than be blasted on the internet for all to see. Even if this writing is soul-bearing, because it’s the only thing I know how to do and do well.
I’ve watched many video essays talk of that strain on creators, that disillusion of the self as you’re promoting you (your brand, your skills, your personality, your thoughts and feelings) for people to look at and want. It causes an identity crisis, because to be engaged online is to live there, to put in everything. You do things outside to write and talk and post them “inside.” but I know myself well enough to say I don’t want to put more of my soul out there on the internet if I have to. I’ve been drawn to it of course ( I wouldn’t be writing here if I wasn’t) to speak to an audience but then the suspicions get me. About what? What do I think is so important that I have to be the one to say it? What do I have to say, if I have anything to say at all?
I’m not a particularly worldly soul. I don’t have these life long lessons inside of me, or rambunctious stories of a youth that was full, mostly, of time online and going to school. I don’t have death defying experiences I can put as a bullet point against something I know. I can’t claim to know everything, and I don’t want to, but I think I know some things, and mostly I just want to talk about them.
I have to stick by something in this world, so I’ve chosen this: I will write in my own time, for enjoyment and for chasing the things I care about the most. Whatever form it takes it the one it will be- poetry or essay or thought-dump or otherwise. I will write because I can’t live without it. The world online is treacherous and loaded with pitfalls, with perfectionism attacks and endless feeds- I can do better. I can carve out my piece of it, tend to this garden, and what comes will come. Here is a truth to remember- if you write like you know what you’re doing, then the rest will follow. Writing has worth, discovered and undiscovered. It is the art of writing that I’m chasing, and the art of sharing I’m hoping is the end result.
Everyone online thinks they have something to say- and I am no exception to the rule. We are all trying to tell someone something and have them remember it. I’m banking on this being my start.
