I'm dealing with input overwhelm. Inputs are coming at me from every direction, and it takes so much energy to handle, that I don't have time for creating output. I’ve started doing more analog things, escaping the algorithm, being untraceable. I leave my phone at home when I go places. I wait longer and longer each day before I check my phone or turn on my computer. I write longhand in a journal, several drafts in pen on paper before I type it up. That always used to be my process. Why did I stop? I don’t know. The lure of all those inputs, I guess.
Wow. This is so good. I kept pulling quotes from it to share in the writers' collective Discord I'm in, but settled on sharing the whole post because it resonates SO MUCH.
I, too, used to spend hours writing in notebooks (those Five Star 5-subject suckers were my mainstays) and journaling (on the computer, but without any expectations for "content" as the output). I'm also feeling the pull to get away from #lifeontheinternet and back into real life. Connecting with people in person. Looking around at life just for life (and for things to write about because I think they're interesting, not because I think Google and Twitter will reward me).
Thank you for saying all this. I know you wrote it last year, but it's 100% pertinent to my life right now and the way I'm thinking about writing. It's scary to step off the internet hamster wheel and go back to writing for your own interests and pleasure. There's a sense that you will Fail.
But, as you point out, fail at what? Fail at sharing things on the internet? Maybe we all need to "fail" a little more at that and pay more attention to our lives.
Wow. This is so good. I kept pulling quotes from it to share in the writers' collective Discord I'm in, but settled on sharing the whole post because it resonates SO MUCH.
I, too, used to spend hours writing in notebooks (those Five Star 5-subject suckers were my mainstays) and journaling (on the computer, but without any expectations for "content" as the output). I'm also feeling the pull to get away from #lifeontheinternet and back into real life. Connecting with people in person. Looking around at life just for life (and for things to write about because I think they're interesting, not because I think Google and Twitter will reward me).
Thank you for saying all this. I know you wrote it last year, but it's 100% pertinent to my life right now and the way I'm thinking about writing. It's scary to step off the internet hamster wheel and go back to writing for your own interests and pleasure. There's a sense that you will Fail.
But, as you point out, fail at what? Fail at sharing things on the internet? Maybe we all need to "fail" a little more at that and pay more attention to our lives.