I should first admit my natural tendency is to be whatever the opposite of an over sharer is. I don’t like to write about myself in a public way and typically keep my inner thoughts and musings to myself. If I do share anything publicly, I like to do so through a fictional disguise. While I, like most people my age, have a casual relationship with social media, I also struggle, daily, to toe the line between sharing myself in a way that feels accurate ? (if that’s even possible) while also not coming off as self interested or attention seeking. I’d be terrified to be perceived as such, but I am likely overly conscious of how I could probably, maybe, possibly be perceived at all times— so much so that it becomes a paralysis of sorts. My tendency to overthink leaves me stranded in my own isolated, inner world, but I fight this tendency. I think we all do in some capacity.
Still, I like it here, on Medium, where I seem to be blissfully undiscovered but still public. I like that my internality can be hidden between boring black and white words that many won’t take the time to read. I like that there is no pressure to appear visible, no aesthetic, no relationship to beauty in a surface level sense. I like that you don’t know what I look like or how old I am or anything other than what I tell you. I like that you might learn what I care about, what I want to do with my life, and what keeps me awake at night before ever learning the color of my hair.
We as a species are perhaps more publicly available than ever before but in a very specific sense as social media is primarily, in a literal sense, an appreciation for and elevation of surface level beauty. This is simply a consequence of its 2-D visual structure, and I don’t even say “surface level” in the negative way that you might hear it. Rather, it is a surface that we engage with visually first and the sheer expression of it, to no fault of any of its users, flattens our ability to engage with each other separately from the external markers of our identity.
I think about how close you feel to an author of a book even through a work of fiction, how you can feel like you know the author in a deeply intimate way. Now think about that feeling in contrast to what it feels like to interact with someone on Instagram. The surface of a person really tells us so little about them in a meaningful sense, and yet, it is our first stop at judgement.
So I realize nothing I’m saying here is new or particularly noteworthy, but I am trying to explain to you why I am writing. I am trying to describe what it might mean to me and the kind of practice it might become. I’m not sure how much I’ll share yet, or what would be the most useful to explore. Either way, I think it will be fun to discover.
