At the same time many things can be true: I want to write, to be a writer, so I must share my writing.
On the other hand, I find it so hard not to fall into the content trap:
- You must post, this many times per week, per day, per month, to be successful. It must be regular, on the dot.
- It has to be an extremely insightful piece, every single time, without question. Take on the right topics, hot takes (what do you mean, you don’t have a fully-formed opinion two hours after something has happened?).
- You have to follow where the algorithm leads you, you have to please it, post the right things, so Real People will see it. Get those eyeballs on it (awful awful phrasing).
- … I could probably go on …
Content implies themes, topics. And I love to write, but sometimes I don’t know what to write about. I also don’t want to be yet another writer writing about writing. So boring. (Yet I love reading about it – so maybe I should?)
My most important conclusion of this month: I have content fatigue. An addiction to consuming and consuming and consuming and on and on and on, until I can’t. Je suis fatigué. These are big words. Too big? I don’t know.
Yet, I keep adding to my watch list, my podcast queue, my Substack inbox. If this was real life, my house would be bursting with newspaper and magazine cut outs, CDs and cassette tapes, piles of unread magazines and papers, VHS tapes or DVDs…
What I do know: I am currently on a big digital clean-up spree, deleting subscriptions left and right: podcasts, instagram/socials, substacks, email lists… I need to stop listening so much, too much, to other people’s voices, tired of them (not all of them though – there will always be some I like and love, and want to pay my best attention to).
Mostly, I want to hear more of what I have to say, on paper, in my writings, or just to myself.
But maybe not always share it (yet) with the world, and create my content consciously, with a conscience, not to add to other people’s potential content fatigues and overflowing inboxes.